Prescott Valley Councilman Bill Williams Resigns from the Council

Photo: Bill Williams

[Editor’s Note: A minor correction has been made. Only portions of Mr. Williams’ resignation letter have been included.]

Prescott Valley Councilman Bill Williams has resigned from the council. Williams believes the town is controlled by the town manager and not the council, with tacit approval by the mayor. Mayor Kell Palguta has gone on KYCA radio in recent months and disparaged not only elderly residents of Prescott Valley, but also the Prescott City council members, Mayor Phil Goode, and citizens, and Williams feels awkward sitting on the same dais with Palguta.

Williams believes that the present council is fractured or lacking cohesion and courage. Vice Mayor Matt Zurcher recently defeated the passage of what would have been the first town ethics policy, and instead made a slick parliamentary move during a council meeting to weaken the ethics police and turn it into a code of conduct – with no teeth, Williams claims. Zurcher received campaign funding from the Wirth clan in Prescott, and his finance report shows nearly all donations coming from out of town. Williams spent about $3,000 and knocked Vice Mayor Lori Hunt out of her seat by more than 1,100 votes. Williams has been heckled ever since.

Williams was seen by many as the change agent or the rebel, the conservative who wanted to rein in expenditures; the man asking ‘where’s the water?’ But he quit, as he says, because he saw the town as a car wreck in progress. “The drivers of the car heading into the ditch are Mayor Kell Palguta, who was a former cop in Prescott Valley, and town manager Gilbert Davidson. We need to take their licenses away before the complete wreck happens,” said Williams.

He points out Davidson is a municipal “job hopper”. At first, he was in charge at Willcox, then Marana, then onto Governor Doug Ducey’s team. But as the head of the Arizona Department of Administration, he quit his job because he was clashing with a new hire in Ducey’s office, according to emails discovered by the Arizona Capitol Times (2018).

Williams’ last straw was at a recent open house where staff, consultants and volunteers were trying to persuade all comers to buy into an enormous park on the east side of Glassford Hill. Prescott and the county are in an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with Prescott Valley and own part of the hill. But Williams points to language in the IGA urging passive recreation, not splash pads, multiple ramadas (including the top of the mountain), asphalt parking lots galore, a ropes challenge course, frisbee golf course, new plants and trees that will need water, cutting new trails, liability insurance policies and new staff to run the amusement rides, bathrooms everywhere – including the top of the hill, and other things not singled out in town surveys as necessary, he said. He clashed with Davidson at the open house regarding too high a price for the park, and a violation of the IGA.

While Williams is not a typical environmentalist, he thinks the town government should protect Glassford Hill, where mountain lion, bear, deer, javelina, song birds and antelope have been sighted over the years; a recent article he wrote for Prescott eNews described how Arizona Game and Fish Department had to evacuate 50 Pronghorn Antelope by truck, off of Glassford Hill – taking them to a wildlife habitat in Southern Arizona. “Game and Fish said they had to remove the herd to save it which was threatened by explosive growth in subdivisions near Glassford Hill,” Williams reminded his readers.

In February, Prescott eNews published Bill’s warning of Prescott Valley’s risk of going broke (“Opinion: Prescott Valley is Heading for an Economic Disaster Never Seen Before in Arizona”).

“I feel bad for the hundreds of people who helped me get elected,” he told Enews staff. “But they know what is wrong with this town. Right now, it is an inept, do-nothing council.”

Artist rendering of park on the east side of Glassford Hill

Here are portions of Williams’ resignation letter, and other comments:

“I can no longer go along with an incredibly corrupt town government, so I am resigning. The lies and the corruption are so deep and figure prominently within key members of town governance that I can’t stand to be on the dais anymore. The only trustworthy person on the dais is Fatima Fernandez, our outstanding clerk, and I will miss her professionalism and staff, and I can say the same of Neil Wadsworth – public works.”

“Town lawyer Ivan Legler brought us the bad deal with the Findley Toyota Event center, and the town will pay $3 million per year for many more years until we get out from under that weight,” said Williams.

“We have no idea how much water is underneath us in the aquifer known as the Agua Fria. Our PFAS tainted effluent has to go somewhere and recent estimates say we could pay $30 million in the next 10-15 years to get the PFAS out of the effluent alone, not to mention three tainted wells we had to shut down in the Quailwood Subdivision.

Williams says the town will raise taxes or a bond to buy back or lease water rights from Water Asset Management, a New York-based hedge fund that bought water rights in Prescott Valley, in 2007, for approximately $70 million, under Harvey Skoog and Ivan Legler’s leadership. And he says the town will raise taxes or get a bond to pay for a swimming pool. No matter which choice is made – a YMCA joint venture costing $49 million  or straight up town built at $29 million, Davidson claims the town has no money.  Williams said both financial choices are bad and he couldn’t stand to be in discussions about them.

“But you see, no object is too expensive when irresponsible leaders decide they want it,” he says. “The town just built the Prescott Valley archway at Glassford Hill Road and Highway 69 for a cool $413,000, but that was COVID Relief Funds.”

Williams thinks it’s time to fix the potholes and install more fire hydrants. The town’s new report showed the town is extraordinarily behind in fire hydrant installation, ironically in a Western upper desert town not unlike Pacific Palisades with high winds and dry straw grass in all the open fields.

With a Masters in journalism, Williams has done hard-hitting interviews for Prescott eNews including School Superintendent Tom Horne and other investigative stories. Williams is launching a new website called EyeOnPV.org and will conduct occasional news interviews for eNews as ‘Eye on PV.’

He informed the Prescott eNews staff there was a faint interest in running for mayor.